Google Now Officially Owns Nest

The company revealed in an SEC filing (via Re/code) that the transaction closed on February 7th. Here’s the relevant snippet:

In January 2014, we entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of Nest Labs, Inc. (Nest), a company whose mission is to reinvent devices in the home such as thermostats and smoke alarms, for a total purchase price of $3.2 billion in cash, subject to adjustments. Prior to this transaction, we had an approximately 12% ownership interest in Nest, which was net against the total consideration. We expect that the acquisition will enhance Google’s suite of products and services and allow Nest to continue to innovate upon devices in the home, making them more useful, intuitive, and thoughtful, and to reach more users in more countries. The transaction closed on February 7, 2014.

This transaction is considered a “step acquisition” under GAAP whereby our ownership interest in Nest held before the acquisition is required to be remeasured to fair value at the date of the acquisition. The gain as a result of remeasurement will be included in “interest and other income, net” on our Consolidated Statement of Income in the first quarter of 2014.

We are currently in the process of valuing the assets acquired and liabilities assumed in the transaction, and determining the fair value of our previously held ownership interest at the acquisition date. We will provide all required disclosures upon the completion of the valuation in the first quarter of 2014.

Some have expressed concern that Google will be getting personal data from Nest devices already in people’s homes, but Nest maintains its privacy policy “clearly limits” the use of customer info to providing and improving Nest’s products and services.

Nest CEO Tony Fadell has said on more than one occasion that if any changes to the privacy policy do occur, they will be opt-in, and the company will be transparent about them.

TechCrunch recently reported that the Nest team will be running Google’s “core” hardware group, and could be building things like phones and tablets. Google’s statement about Nest enhancing its suite of products and services could be in line with that, but clearly the further expansion of Nest’s existing products is on the agenda.